'07 leaves just one company in sub-cr market cap league

As the year 2007 draws to a close today, it saw the bourses showering their bounty as ten new firms joined the elite club of at least Rs one lakh crore market cap, while just one was left in the sub Rs one crore league.

As the year 2007 draws to a close today, it saw the bourses showering their bounty as ten new firms joined the elite club of at least Rs one lakh crore market cap, while just one was left in the sub Rs one crore league.

A year ago, there were as many as 25 companies with a market capitalisation of less than Rs one crore. But, at the end of 2007, K B Steel remained the lone member of this not-so -enviable club.

Five years ago, there were as many as 84 companies with a market value of less than Rs one crore at the end of 2002.

The year also saw more than 100 companies attaining a billion-dollar market capitalisation, while the number of companies valued at less than one million dollars dropped from about 350 to just a hundred.

In the elite ranks, two companies -- Reliance Industries and ONGC -- ended the year with a market capitalisation of more than Rs two trillion, as against none a year ago. During the year, at least four more companies joined this rank -- Bharti Airtel, NTPC, MMTC and NDMC -- but they could not sustain above this level and ended the year a bit lower.

In the Rs 1,00,000 crore-market cap club, there were 16 companies at the end of the year, as against just six in 2006.

The list of companies with a market value of at least Rs 1,000 crore also saw at least 150 new entrants from just 383 a year ago. The number of those with a market value of at least Rs 100 crore also rose by about 300 from 1,054 at 2006-end.

At the same time, the number of those with less than Rs 100 crore market cap declined by about 100 from 552 in 2006.

The total market capitalisation of all the listed companies on Indian bourses increased by about Rs 35,00,000 crore to Rs 71,69,983 crore.